Web links: Michigan fallout, Iowa factoids & tweets

By Tom Dienhart, BTN.com Senior Writer, 4 years ago

Web links: Michigan fallout, Iowa factoids & tweets

By Tom Dienhart, BTN.com Senior Writer, 4 years ago

It’s Wednesday, Hump Day. And, it seems Michigan Nation is still aflame over the loss at Penn State. The analysis and problem-solving boils. Brady Hoke said it. We all know it: Devin Gardner can’t carry the ball 27 times a game. Gardner actually ran it 24 times at Penn State. And when he ran it, Michigan had some success. When he didn’t run, the offense—well, it stunk. So, that’s the conundrum.

“We’ve really looked at what we’re doing from an offensive perspective during the off week and bye week, and we made some changes,” Hoke said Tuesday during the Big Ten coaches teleconference. “And we may tweak a thing here or there (moving forward), but we can’t ask Devin (Gardner) to run the ball 27 times.

“You’re going to get him beat up and you won’t have him for the heart of the Big Ten schedule.”

“We’ve got the best kicker in the league, we think, especially inside of 40 yards, so we were just going to try to position it so he could finish,” Borges said of kicker Brendan Gibbons, who missed one at the end of regulation and two in overtime Saturday. “The biggest thing is, if you try to score — aggressively try to score — you don’t give him a chance. Then everybody’s going to second-guess you. That was our approach. We threw the ball six times and ran it eight times, so it wasn’t like we reined ourselves (in) totally.”

So there is that. I’m not gonna argue. I would have done the same thing.

Yes, Penn State has a bye this week. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something to talk about. It seems the team could have—COULD HAVE—a running back controversy. Yes, I know. It seems kinda silly. Don’t all teams need 2-3 good backs? Does it really matter who starts? Exactly.

***

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz was asked on the weekly Big Ten presser if Ohio State bossman Urban Meyer was good for the Big Ten. Interesting answer, I guess.

BTN.com senior writer Tom Dienhart is a veteran sports journalist who covers Big Ten football and men’s basketball for BTN.com and BTN TV. Find him on Twitter and Facebook, read all of his work at btn.com/tomdienhart, and subscribe to his posts via RSS. Also, send questions to his weekly mailbag using the form below and read all of his previous answers in his reader mailbag section.

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